Pure Science Supported in Pusey Speech

President Pusey, speaking before the Economic Club of New York, last night made one of the most important pronouncements in many years on the role of science in the University.

"The university's primary concern is not for the results of engineering, nor for science as an instrument of technology," according to Pussy, "but rather, essentially, for science as an intellectual pursuit whose compelling motive is simply the desire to know."

Such an attitude, which has often been missing in this country because of a sweeping concern for "practicality," links science with the humanities in the tradition of European universities.

"Basic Research" Needed

He went on to point out that the technological and engineering advances of our time spring from more fundamental and equally important advances in "basic science." "Planned research" is, according to Pusey, impossible, and he asked that the government, as it takes inevitably a greater and greater role in the support of pure science, not give grants with the expectation of specific results in a given period of time.

The universities, Pusey said, are the proper places for pure research, for in them the scientist is free to follow, without the pressure of deadlines, the scholars' "desire to know." From such a viewpoint, the oft-voiced opinion that science is incompatible with the humanistic tradition of Harvard would be greatly undermined.

While recognizing the urgency of the national situation and the "inextricable involvement" of American universities in it, Pusey saw a "nobler rivalry of the enterprise of science," in which "the combatants are conscious solely of discovery for discovery's sake."